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Scheduled Maintenance Notice

ALERT: NationalService.gov will be offline for site maintenance between the hours of 5:30PM EST and 8:00PM EST this Thursday (March 5) evening. During this time, our eGrants and My AmeriCorps portal sites will still be accessible.

Open Government Initiative

The Open Government Directive is an effort to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration that form the cornerstone of an open government.

Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the government is doing.

Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of a wide range of views and information.

Collaboration improves the effectiveness of government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the federal government, across levels of government, and between the government and private institutions and citizens.

The Corporation for National and Community Service has long embraced these principles. Participation and collaboration are at the heart of our mission, as we work with thousands of organizations to engage millions of Americans in service each year. From seeking input on our strategic plan, regulations, and policies; to sharing program evaluations and agency performance data; to providing grants and training to organizations across the country, open government is a guiding principle of our work. Under the Administration's Open Government Initiative, we are committed to becoming more open.

Open Government Plan Version 1.1

Based on input from agency staff and the public, the CNCS Open Government Plan contains detailed information on our current activities and future improvements to increase transparency, collaboration and participation. This plan is a living document and we are interested in hearing from you about our plan. Please let us know what you think and share any other ideas on how we can improve transparency, participation and collaboration by sending an email to open@cns.gov.

Status of our Open Government Plan

In our Open Government Plan, we committed to giving the public quarterly status updates. Here is our Open Government Status as of March 31, 2010. This will provide you with the status for a list of completed projects, actively ongoing projects, and projects planned for the next year.

Open Government Gallery

The CNCS Open Government Gallery highlights a few key initiatives and projects that demonstrate CNCS's commitment to the open government principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.

Freedom of Information Act and Records Retention

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives Americans the opportunity to gather information about government activities. The FOIA generally provides access to federal agency records or portions of those records except those which are protected from release by specific exemptions. For a reference guide on how to submit a FOIA request and other information, click on the links below.

CNCS creates many records in a wide variety of forms including paper, video and electronic, among others. This below document specifies the records dispositions and policies associated with these records.